 CDC Disad – 1NC

A. CDC budget balanced now – public health is being sustained

Julie L. Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H., Director CDC, March 9, 2007
The President’s FY 2008 Budget Request for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2007/03/t20070309a.html

Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to discuss the support CDC has received in the President’s FY 2008 budget request. In an era of limited fiscal resources and many competing priorities, the FY 2008 budget strikes a balance between preparing for urgent threats and confronting urgent realities, and we are committed to leveraging these resources to achieve maximum health impact and reduce health disparities. In the coming fiscal year, CDC will sustain our leadership role in promoting health among young people and adults, across all life stages, and in schools and communities around the country. We will continue our investment in preparedness for urgent health threats and will work with partners at home and abroad to assure a healthy international community. In closing, I would like to express particular thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the members of this Subcommittee, for your continued support. I look forward to working with Congress over the course of this next fiscal year to fulfill our public health mission, and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.


B. Plan causes funding to be cut

The Nation’s Health, Official Newspaper of the American Public Health Association, March, 2007
Kim Krisberg, President’s 2008 budget plan proposes further health cuts: CDC, HRSA programs threatened, http://www.apha.org/publications/tnh/archives/2007/March2007/Nation/BushBudget.htm

How much legislators will be able to achieve remains to be seen. While the new Congress is expected to place a high priority on health issues, the overall federal budget remains tight. Nevertheless, public health advocates will be working to make sure funding is adequate, and APHA members are being asked to help. While CDC would see some increases for emerging threats under Bush’s proposal, such as an additional $158 million increase for pandemic flu preparedness, such added funding comes at the expense of the agency’s core prevention and health promotion programs, many of which have been targeted for elimination by the administration during the past few budget cycles as well, said Don Hoppert, APHA’s director of government relations. Among the CDC programs threatened are the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant, which the president’s proposal would eliminate completely. The block grant is a key stream of public health funding that allows states to tailor activities to their community’s specific needs and can be used to fill in funding gaps or address unforeseen public health threats. Block grant money goes toward a myriad of activities, from anti-obesity programs to emergency volunteer training to newborn hearing loss tracking. Bush’s budget recommendations would also eliminate much of the Steps to a Healthier U.S. program, which addresses the nation’s rising obesity rates. The proposal comes on the heels of last year’s elimination of CDC’s Verb program, a proven and highly successful media campaign aimed at childhood obesity.


C. The PHHS block grant is the bedrock of the American public health system – cutting the program risks nationwide epidemics

DHPE, Directors of Health Promotion and Education, 2006
Executive Summary: Impact of Elimination of the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant on Delivery of Public Health Services A Case for Restoration, http://www.dhpe.org/ExecutiveSummaryImpactEliminationPHHSBlockGrant.doc

With no proposed increases in other categorical funding to offset the PHHS Block Grant’s elimination, states face devastating cuts in critical public health services. These cuts would severely hamper the nation’s investment in prevention and the states’ ability to respond timely to emergencies and health threats. Specifically, terminating the PHHS Block Grant would create dangerous cracks in the nation’s public health system, eliminate important public health services in the local communities, and impede state innovation and distribution of start-up funds. Already-strained state budgets would be asked to find $132 million dollars to fund those programs currently supported by the PHHS Block Grant. Our assessment shows that this is not possible. It has also been implied that current categorical funding (most of which are available in only a subset of states) can absorb up to 65% of the eliminated costs. This is clearly not feasible or possible. Many categorical funding sources prohibit using funds for crosscutting efforts. Eliminating this critical source of flexible funding to states at a time when state health departments are facing deep cuts in funding would seriously endanger an already fragile public health system. Significant funding from the PHHS Block Grant goes to chronic disease prevention programs such as heart disease and stroke, diabetes, cancer, physical activity/nutrition, arthritis, oral health and school-based health services. States currently dedicate nearly $49 million in PHHS Block Grant funds to such programs. States also dedicate approximately $8.6 million to injury prevention and $7.6 million to rape prevention. Many of these initiatives are not supported by CDC’s categorical chronic disease programs. For example, PHHS Block Grant funding currently is the sole source of funding for the following: heart disease programs in 8 states, nutrition and overweight programs in 6 states, oral health programs in 6 states, rape or attempted rape programs in 5 states, and physical activity &amp; fitness programs in 3 states. Elimination of the PHHS Block Grant will yield disastrous results in all of these areas. In addition to chronic diseases and related risk factors, PHHS Block Grant funds allow States to respond quickly to state-specific emergencies and emerging health issues. States need a source of flexible funds to react quickly during unexpected outbreaks and emergencies and to respond rapidly to emerging health threats within their states so as not to endanger other states or spawn and nationwide epidemic. Programs at stake in this area include prevention of fatalities due to a recent meningitis outbreak in Mississippi school children and prevention of outbreaks of waterborne disease in Alabama.

D. A strong US public health system is key to the economy

Business Week, September 25, 2006
What's Really Propping Up The Economy, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002001.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

If you really want to understand what makes the U.S. economy tick these days, don't go to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Washington. Just take a short trip to your local hospital. Park where you don't block the ambulances, and watch the unending flow of doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personnel. You'll have a front-row seat at the health-care economy. For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your Aunt Tilly have justifiably bemoaned American health care -- the out-of-control costs, the vast inefficiencies, the lack of access, and the often inexplicable blunders. But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago.


E. A U.S. economic collapse will cause nuclear war.

Walter Mead, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, March/April, 2004
America’s Sticky Power, Foreign Policy, Proquest

Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United States-government and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments-more and more of them have acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system. A collapse of the U.S. economy and the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other countries fear to break with the United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and the United States must continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a vengeance. The United States' global economic might is therefore not simply, to use Nye's formulations, hard power that compels others or soft power that attracts the rest of the world. Certainly, the U.S. economic system provides the United States with the prosperity needed to underwrite its security strategy, but it also encourages other countries to accept U.S. leadership. U.S. economic might is sticky power. How will sticky power help the United States address today's challenges? One pressing need is to ensure that Iraq's econome reconstruction integrates the nation more firmly in the global economy. Countries with open economies develop powerful trade-oriented businesses; the leaders of these businesses can promote economic policies that respect property rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Such leaders also lobby governments to avoid the isolation that characterized Iraq and Libya under economic sanctions. And looking beyond Iraq, the allure of access to Western capital and global markets is one of the few forces protecting the rule of law from even further erosion in Russia. China's rise to global prominence will offer a key test case for sticky power. As China develops economically, it should gain wealth that could support a military rivaling that of the United States; China is also gaining political influence in the world. Some analysts in both China and the United States believe that the laws of history mean that Chinese power will someday clash with the reigning U.S. power. Sticky power offers a way out. China benefits from participating in the U.S. economic system and integrating itself into the global economy. Between 1970 and 2003, China's gross domestic product grew from an estimated $106 billion to more than $1.3 trillion. By 2003, an estimated $450 billion of foreign money had flowed into the Chinese economy. Moreover, China is becoming increasingly dependent on both imports and exports to keep its economy (and its military machine) going. Hostilities between the United States and China would cripple China's industry, and cut off supplies of oil and other key commodities. Sticky power works both ways, though. If China cannot afford war with the United States, the United States will have an increasingly hard time breaking off commercial relations with China. In an era of weapons of mass destruction, this mutual dependence is probably good for both sides. Sticky power did not prevent World War I, but economic interdependence runs deeper now; as a result, the "inevitable" U.S.-Chinese conflict is less likely to occur.